Eclectic Pragmatism
Is There a God?
by
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Science can describe and utilize natural processes, and even modify some of them. It can often relate cause and effect. A crucial limitation Science recognizes in its creeds is the principle that no idea can be accepted unless validated by measurements. Otherwise, each idea is only another speculation and acting on it a matter of faith. What we have found is:
- Science has many instances of faith in its creeds.
- Science has failed to explain the ultimate nature of matter or the Universe or to explain our origins.
- If our Universe began in a Big Bang, no one has been able to conceive a way of making measurements of the conditions before our Universe began.
Science thus is illogical. It proudly points to all the regularities ("Laws") it has uncovered (not invented) in the material portion of our Universe. We say a proof in mathematics requires both necessary and sufficient conditions. These "Laws" may be only the necessary conditions for an explanation of our Universe. But they are not sufficient for a complete explanation. They are empirical approximations with arbitrary constants of proportionality.
Science shuns investigations in the spiritual portion, arguing that there is nothing to measure. It would appear more reasonable and logical to assume that that sphere would also show regularities (Laws).
Secularists say Science proves there are no absolutes, or at least has found none. We have seen this is absolutely incorrect: atomic structure, crystal structure, Avogadro's Number, the charge on an electron, the Law of Gravity. So if the material world has absolutes, why should we not expect to find absolutes in the world of the mind and in the world of the spirit?
Question: Science asserts there is only the material world. Then why does it insist its pronouncements in that world are applicable to the mental or the spiritual world? And even in its proper sphere, its versions of Natural Laws are often limited to portions of the ranges of the variables.
Science is also asking us to believe ever more unreasonable things, while its sages wag their heads in unison: quarks, gravitons, strings, monopoles, curled up undetectable dimensions.
It is argued that we are all different. In Ch. 16 we noted why we have reason to believe we are unique individuals. I suggest this argument is overdone. We need to recognize a middle course between being unique and being a clone. We already do this by acknowledging similarities we consider important.
In another regard, if we are all different, why do so many lie, steal, lust, rape, and murder? This surely is replicated behavior.
One of the pictures that comes to mind is that of our life process. We ingest certain substances we call food from our environment. Our bodies extract nourishment and energy from these foods. We excrete waste to the environment. What is the meaning? We are merely waste makers. If we do nothing more than this, we are only one step away from being the sewer itself.
One conclusion is absolutely certain: if the Universe we can measure is all there is, we will get absolutely no help from it. Such a Universe is absolutely indifferent to whether we live or die. For what we are doing to our Earth, which is our home, the Universe is probably better off without us.
Next, Science displays most of the important characteristics of a religion in having sets of:
- Dogmas (Uniformitarianism, the Big Bang, Evolution, Relativity, exchange particles, quarks)
- Doctrines (Expanding Universe, Conservation Laws, Random events, spin, the Lorentz Contraction)
- Taboos (God, supernaturalism, time prior to the BB, miracles, psychic phenomena)
- Priests (experts, interpreters, spokespeople)
- Values (rationality, consistency, materialism)
- Rituals (conventions, technical meetings, honors)
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About the Book
For centuries Religion has explained our Universe as the work of one or more supernatural beings. In the last three, Science has been able to describe (not explain) many phenomena by means of regularities it has uncovered (not invented) that it calls Laws of Nature. Because it has been able to utilize these Laws in marvelous ways, it has created an illusion of God-like power and fostered increasingly clamorous voices that attack the concept of supernatural powers.
Its own concepts (Evolution, Relativity, and Uncertainty) have been grafted into the sphere of human relationships with the aim of reinventing civilization. They threaten to displace our findings from centuries of bloody human experiments on how to get along with each other.
Science also offers us bizarre concepts (an expanding Universe, quarks, gluons, cosmic strings). We are told we cannot rely on our own experiences or intuitions for explanations. But we find that the concepts rest on measurement systems that are arbitrary and relative. Questions like, "Is there something smaller than a quark?" and "What happened before the Big Bang?" are dismissed as meaningless.
This book is intended to stir your thinking about the make- believe basis of Science and its limitations in explaining our Universe. It is written in clear English to make the paths to the conclusions easier to understand than those in standard textbooks. It is not necessary to plough through the equations, but they are provided so you can examine more critically the bases for the conclusions.
About the Author
Mr. Peterson (MChE, MIE, MPIA) draws upon an eclectic analytic background as engineer, stockbroker, soldier, medical technician, questioning Christian, and parent to highlight inconsistencies and unanswered questions in Religion and Science. He has heard, as Omar Khayyám wrote, "great argument about it and about, but evermore went out by the same door wherein I went". Many descriptions of the problems of society exist, but little in the way of widely accepted solutions. Several dictators have promised solutions based in part on Darwinian assumptions only to succeed in just a few decades in killing off well over 100,000,000 of their own people before they themselves passed from the scene. If you value your freedoms, it is still not too late to join in the effort to understand the bases for those freedoms. As a start, his Eclectic Pragmatism aims to identify what we can accept from the assumptions behind the explanations offered by Science and Religion for our Universe.